Lately, when doing search for anything Barth on ebay, I'm running into a new problem due to a recent change ebay implemented.

After typing in "Barth" on the ebay motors page, ebay changes it to "Bath" and, as you may have guessed, I don't find many Barth coaches or items on the "BATH" page. Ebay tells me it does this because there aren't any matches for "Barth" so, due to the new change; it automatically re-directs me to "Bath" since it is the closest match. I informed them that there was an auction for a "Barth" active and still got "bupkus."

Is anyone else running into this problem?

Not this one in specific, but let me tell you my experience with Ebay. While trying to sell a car on Ebay, I saw what was clearly a fraudulent listing, for a car that was exactly like mine. Using their 'live chat' system I notified Ebay and they told me they would remove the fraudulent listing. They didn't and so I didn't pay for my listing. They suspended my account. I sent copies of over 50 emails I had sent to customer service and billing to Ebay's corporate office, registered mail. Some of the responses I had from my emails were absolutely hilarious (at the time I didn't think so). I did this registered mail thing twice. I never go a reply, not once. Their "customer service" is more like what a bull does to a cow. I'll never use them again and I never look for anything on Ebay. There are other methods to buy and sell. BTW, I sold my car on Auto Trader in two weeks, no problems.

I've never experienced a word-changing problem using an ebay search, something I do about 20 times a day (at least). In fact I just searched "Barth" and came up with 70 matches... not related to motorhomes, but there are still keyword matches. What page & what search box are you using when you have the "Bath" substitution problem?

Bill, I never had that problem with Ebay, so after I saw your post I went to Ebay Motor and checked.
I typed Barth and I got one hit. I also got the following link proposed to me:

Did you mean: bath? (11 items)

Is it possible that you clicked on that link instead?

quote:

Originally posted by scottydl:
I've never experienced a word-changing problem using an ebay search, something I do about 20 times a day (at least). What page & what search box are you using when you have the "Bath" substitution problem?

This word changing problem has only happened when searching for "Barth" from the ebay motors page. If I search from ebay home or from my ebay page, I also get a number of matches but most of them are unwanted. I eliminate them by searching from ebay motors so I only see what I want, namely Barth custom coaches or related items. The problem: ebay implemented a change that automatically changes your search if they detect a spelling error or if nothing is found. From their responses, I get the impression this was not ebay wide.

quote:

Originally posted by Raymag: Bill, I never had that problem with Ebay, so after I saw your post I went to Ebay Motor and checked.
I typed Barth and I got one hit. I also got the following link proposed to me:

Did you mean: bath? (11 items)

Is it possible that you clicked on that link instead?

No, I did not click on that since I did not want to see bath items. From the ebay motors page, I would type "Barth" and hit the search button. It would immediately change to "bath" and give me all those nice bath items I didn't want to see. In my first email to ebay, I even gave them two item numbers for two Barth coaches that were active when I searched, neither of which showed up because my search was changed to "BATH." By the time they responded, both of them had ended. They of course, without looking at the item ending date or my email date, decided that was why I wasn't seeing them. It took over a week to get them to understand the sequence of events and the real problem. As of this morning, the problem appears to be gone. I don't know if it was me or if they had numerous complaints.

I've been using ebay for eight years and I'm pretty familiar with its features, including the search feature. I was surprised to see this "corrective" feature implemented since ebay already had a neat way of finding items that sellers had misspelled. Hopefully, they will ditch this "feature" and the rest of you won't have to deal with it. At the moment, it appears they have.

quote:

Originally posted by Jim and Tere:
Not this one in specific, but let me tell you my experience with Ebay. While trying to sell a car on Ebay, I saw what was clearly a fraudulent listing, for a car that was exactly like mine. Using their 'live chat' system I notified Ebay and they told me they would remove the fraudulent listing. They didn't and so I didn't pay for my listing. They suspended my account. I sent copies of over 50 emails I had sent to customer service and billing to Ebay's corporate office, registered mail. Some of the responses I had from my emails were absolutely hilarious (at the time I didn't think so). I did this registered mail thing twice. I never go a reply, not once. Their "customer service" is more like what a bull does to a cow. I'll never use them again and I never look for anything on Ebay. There are other methods to buy and sell. BTW, I sold my car on Auto Trader in two weeks, no problems.

Yeah, they are getting more like the Kapalı Çarşı evey day. I have never been stung by them, but I have notified them of several fraudulent misrepresentations, and there has never been a response. No, I never notified them of the several Breakaways that were advertised as Regencies. BTW, there is one on another ad board now, too.

As for their stooge PayPal, RUN, FORREST, RUN!

WARNING: lots of info ahead. Skip to last paragraph for the nickle version.

All their claims and hype about Buyer Protection are rubbish.

I did not receive the merchandise from an Ebay seller. I wrote PayPal and they wrote me,

"We have completed our investigation of this case. We attempted to process a refund from the seller's account to your account. Unfortunately, the seller's account does not contain the funds necessary to cover this refund. We were able to recover $0.00 USD. We have taken action against the seller and are working to recover the remainder of your refund. We will contact you when we have more information. No further action is required of you at this time.

The buyer's claim has been granted but the seller did not have sufficient funds in his PayPal account to cover the refund. PayPal is working with the seller to recover funds on the buyer's behalf. Case Closed."

I did a little research on my own, in an attempt to help them out, and learned that the company, Jaggerswholesale is presently doing business on Ebay as pandpmart. See item 4446852390. They had 100% positive feedback (SURPRISE!) and take Paypal. They are also Martstores3, who also take Paypal. That means that paypal was not telling the truth about no funds in the account. Even eBay is not aware of their latest ID, Pandpmart.

It would appear that they were practically shape shifters and eBay and Paypal were completely unaware or just don't care.



I wrote them again, hoping that my research would be of use to them.

"You have said you won’t pay me because their account has no funds. They are still selling on Ebay with Paypal offered. How can this be? The parent company Jaggerswholesale operates on both Ebay and Paypal under a number of names.

Such as PandPmart. You can pay me from their account. They are also active as The box below contains the User IDs that this member has used on eBay.



User ID ....................Effective Date End Date

martstores3 ............... Oct-31-06 Present


jaggerswholesale ............Mar-28-06 Oct-31-06


toolsandbeyond.............Feb-16-06 Mar-28-06


bestgiftsandbeyond........Jan-15-06 Feb-16-06


bedbathandgifts .........Nov-19-05 Jan-15-06


dbs7878 ..................Jun-15-05 Nov-19-05


ddaytoberlin..............Jan-03-05 Jun-15-05


intracomm.................Jan-05-04 Jan-03-05


panzer_vx.................Oct-29-03 Jan-05-04"

They chose not to respond to my offer to help them find the funds they couldn't find on their own.

A third letter got me the response that they had made their "best effort" and that was all they were obligated to do. I have a problem when perhaps the World's largest internet company's "best effort" is way inferior to the results of a rank amateur such as myself.

Sheeze! It reminds me of the time the police couldn't find the hit and run driver that hit my kid. Took me an hour.

SOOOOOOOO.........My advice is, if you MUST use PayPal, click on the "Other Payment Options" to use your credit card as the primary method of payment. That way, you have some recourse. They don't like you to do that, so they make it a little harder and a lot longer, but persevere, it is worth it if something goes wrong. That feature also makes it a little harder for a crook to clean out your bank account.

I always pay with a credit card through Paypal, for the very reason you mentioned Bill. I was burned once in a very similar fashion, luckily for only about $15 but it still stunk.

towerguy, I agree that is not a very wise "feature" to implement... forced substitutions of search terms if the eBay computer thinks you made a spelling error. Glad they turned it back off. As far as eBay searches go, I've fallen in love with saved searches that can be stored through "My Favorites" from the My Ebay page. Or anytime you search for something, click "Save this Search" near the top of the results page. Then eBay will e-mail you anytime something that matches the search is listed. Makes it very easy to scroll through an e-mail and only check out the items of interest. I use the feature now for pretty much anything that I'm price-shopping or researching anymore.

Seems everyone has a different experience with Ebay. I too was getting "bath" for barth searches.I have bought from ebay 22 times or so, including buying the nice 12 page brochure listed in a differant thread. Only was ripped off once but left a bad taste in my mouth for ebay. And Scott if you think your protected by using you CC you might not have those rights. When you sign up for paypal you agree to not using your credit card resolution team.

1974 C class 19'

quote:

Originally posted by Dalton:
And Scott if you think your protected by using you CC you might not have those rights. When you sign up for paypal you agree to not using your credit card resolution team.

I'm not surprised that's buried in the fine print now. Paypal is slick (in a bad way) about slipping in rules that protect them and take away the customer's rights. If there's ever another online payment option as widely accepted as Paypal, I will gladly use it! From a legal perspective however, it doesn't seem like a membership agreement I have with them can affect a separate resolution agreement I have with a credit card company?!

Wow! I hadn't heard about the inability to use a credit card resolution team. I have used my credit card a number of times as extra protection. I have done this as a result of sellers trying to burn me. In each case, except one, ebay and PayPal were almost worthless.

In one case where the seller had lied horribly about the condition of a pair Klipsch speakers, PayPal's suggestion was for me to pay for shipping the speakers back to the seller and he would then return my money. This would not include the SHIPPING CHARGES that would end up around $500 for speakers I paid $800 for. PayPal was unable to give me any assurances that I would in fact reeive my money back. If I had been dumb enough to ship them back, I would then be looking at a loss of $1300, including shipping and PayPal thought this was the best plan of action, to hope for the best. In the end, I demanded that the seller refund $300 which was finally agreed to. PayPal was very close to being no help at all. A couple of years earlier, PayPal was apparently quite different. When a seller refused to ship the item I paid for, PayPal locked their account. Since the sellers private business received most of their payments via PayPal, it put him in dire straits and he decided it was best to ship the package. I guess PayPal was not very quick to releae the lock on his account.

Anyone thinking they can get ebay and/or PayPal to get their money back - forget it. It is for this reason I have become a lot more reliant on finding things I want via craigslist. I bought a pair of speakers yesterday for $200 that I found on craigslist in Denver. I have never seen them sell for less than $400 on ebay and then there is shipping on top of that. On craigslist, you meet the seller and look at the item in person before any money changes hands. The only problem with craigslist is you have to be a lot more patient waiting for the item to show up locally and be willing to drive a few miles. It was well worth the trip and being patient is well worth the savings.

Sometimes, the favorite search feature gets in the way, almost demanding to look in an area I don't want them to look and it always results in 0 matches found. Luckily, this has only happened a couple of times. It happens when I'm not wanting to use the favorite search and it does so anyway.

What's crazy about the worthlessness of eBay & Paypal "buyer protection" is that on 2 occasions I've received bogus products from Half.com sellers and had no problems getting my money back (incl. shipping). And half.com is owned by eBay now. That wasn't always the case though, and I have a feeling that half.com must have demanded they keep their product guarantees when they sold to eBay. It's been a much more positive experience IMO.

Craigslist is a good alternative, but in my area away from any big cities (about 120 miles from either Chicago or St. Louis) there aren't that many options. Sure I can search the city listings and be prepared to drive a couple hours, but so far nothing I need has been that important. If I work out a deal remotely with the person, then we're back to mailing a check or paying via Paypal probably.

Well all-righty-then. My story must be added now. As you all know I was to be another two Barth member, but the deal went sour rather quickly when I showed up to look at what could have been a nice or at least a fixer upper Barth. Well that was not what it was. I told the seller 'no deal' and wanted my deposit back. He expectedly said no, and that was that. I then turned the pile of lemons into lemonade by visiting my daughter and my grandson while I was in the South East PA area, and that made the trip well worth the journey. Then I even got to visit with our Fantastic Webmaster and meet his understanding family and look over his Barth conversion. So again, more worthwhile to the trip. To finish off the story, after placing a claim with eBay, and Paypal for fraud, I was informed last week that I got my deposit back. life it good. And that’s the truth.

Well here is my two cents.Within the last two months I tried to purchase some model train gauges from ebay.First purchase was paid through paypal,the second purchase was paid through another company that the seller changed to.In both cases I never received the product,but in both cases a simple call to Visa was a very easy"sorry this happen",your account has been credit and the sellers bank was charged.So I also recommend using a credit card and check your bill each month for any unauthorized purchases.

quote:

Originally posted by Jack:
Then I even got to visit with our Fantastic Webmaster and meet his understanding family and look over his Barth conversion.

Since taking over the website from Dave I've met, in this order... Tom Johns at Fridays, Jack came by my house and we had lunch at Fridays and I wound up meeting Rusty at his conference in Suffern NY.

Now, so as not to send this post into another area. I have had decent experience with Ebay.

I only deal with people who have "Very Good" feedback. I have had one issue with a "No Ship" and was refunded my money thru PayPal. Ebay cancelled another listing after I won the item for what they said was fraud. The vendor shipped the item anyway and I was given a full refund. I wound up mailing the seller a check. After all, it was the right thing to do.

A truck that I sold on Ebay fetched several thousand more then anyone around Newburgh was willing to give me and it showed me that sometimes you can get a better price on Ebay.

I reported one person who was selling an item and had a ghost bidder force the price up. Everytime this winner won an item, this seller relisted it. After I reported it, Ebay watched his "then current listings" and suspended him for fraud.

Am I happy with Ebay? You bet. I have over 200 feedbacks and I am still at 100%

YMMV

If you do it the right way, it certainly is a great service. Will you ALWAYS get the highest possible price for an item you sell? No. Will you ALWAYS get the best price for an item you buy? No. But if you do your research and can delay immediate purchase gratification, both of those aspects can work out in your favor. Are there features that have downfalls and can buyers/sellers be difficult to deal with sometimes? Yes. But I have had a great experience overall, made a little money and gotten deals that far outweigh the one time I've been burned and the few bad experiences I've had.

I have received 1 negative out of 370+ total feedback, and that was from the one time that I sold something for someone else (a collector toy that apparently wasn't described properly according to the buyer - I knew nothing about the item and was trying to do a favor for a friend). That was about 7 years ago and I've refused to be the "go between" ever since then. I'd rather teach people how to use eBay for themselves, over which I've discovered many folks are initially extremely intimidated.

Just like RV'ing, using the eBay marketplace can be an enjoyable and satisfying experience. But if you jump in too quick and don't do the research and/or have a bad experience early on, you'll swear off the "pastime" forever and miss out on a lot in the process.